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Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico said he believes state laws have stacked the deck against him as he looks to become the first Democrat to win statewide office since 1994.
"Means you’re probably going to have to win by a little more than we would have to in a completely free and fair election," Talarico said in a recent podcast interview.
Talarico’s posture towards Texas voting laws reflects a broader Democratic belief that Republican dominance in the Lone Star State is due to low turnout brought on by election security measures rather than the state’s conservative leanings — a theory that continues to drive long-running attempts to flip the state.
Despite having raised an impressive $40 million as of March, Talarico faces an uphill campaign against Republican candidate Ken Paxton, the current Texas attorney general, who has widespread name recognition.
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"We’re going to have to overcome that. We’re going to have to out-organize, out-work, out-hustle that voter suppression if we’re going to win," Talarico said.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas passed a flurry of election-security bills.
Most notably, the legislature passed SB1, a bill that requires voters to provide specific identification numbers to vote and to register to vote: either a Texas driver's license, an election identification certificate or the last four digits of a Social Security number.
It also banned drive-through voting and unsolicited mailing of ballot applications.
Talarico said he opposed its passage as a state legislator.
"I will say that we already have a lot of voter suppression in Texas. It’s baked into our laws. I’ve fought fiercely against many of those laws when they were coming through the legislature," Talarico said.
"Texas is one of the hardest places to vote in the country as a result. It’s why we see such low voter turnout in our state compared to other states," Talarico said.
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Although it’s true that Texas ranks in the bottom five states for voter turnout, the 56.6% of voters that cast a ballot in the last presidential election was greater than turnout in 2016, 2012 and 2004, according to data from the United States Election Project. Similarly, the 41.8% participation in the 2022 midterms exceeded levels from 2014, 2010, 2006 and 2002.
Talarico’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
To at least one GOP strategist, Talarico’s concern over turnout comes at the expense of his prioritization of election security.
"James Talarico wants illegal aliens to vote in our elections," Zach Kraft, a Republican National Committee spokesperson, told Fox News Digital.
"While Talarico puts illegals first, Ken Paxton will continue to put Texans first by working with President Trump to get the SAVE America Act signed into law and ensure foreign citizens never vote in American elections," Kraft said, referring to the national voter integrity bill championed by Republicans in Congress.
Notably, as a state legislator, Talarico also voted against a bill that increased state penalties for illegal aliens voting in Texas elections from a Class A misdemeanor to a second-degree felony.
Despite his pessimistic outlook on Texas’s voting laws, Talarico urged viewers to draw confidence from other long-shot campaigns, such as civil rights movements and labor organizers.
"They were all up against a rigged system. So, if they can do that, we can certainly do that against this stacked deck," Talarico said.
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